So, what is this cloud thing anyway?

You may be wondering why I would write about something as simple as cloud computing. The answer is, that many people hear and use terms without getting the full ramification of those concepts. Cloud computing is one such term. The NIST definition is still relevant (Mell & Grance, 2011). The essential characteristics are:

1)     On demand self-service – think portal or an API

2)     Connected to the Internet – taken for granted now

3)     Resource Pools – multiple organizations utilize shared resources

4)     Rapid elasticity – a big selling point is that cloud environments can scale up and down based on demand

5)     Measured service – consumption-based pricing is central to most cloud environments (think pay-as-you-go)

The remainder of the NIST definition goes into service models (software, platform, and infrastructure as a service) and the types of deployment models. Most of this is still relevant apart from community clouds being less common. Also, the concept of a virtual private cloud has emerged where networking and other security considerations gives many of the benefits private clouds previously offered.

Let me know if you think the definition of cloud computing has significantly change.

Reference

Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2011). The NIST definition of cloud computing.